Baeleric Island
"The place is a nightmare. It took decades to contain it as much as we have, and we're still charting the environmental impact. The reactors are still leaking free isotopes and heavy radiation, and the local flora and fauna display alarming mutations. It doesn't help that there appears to have been an antecessor site there, and whatever happened in the immediate aftermath of the crash has had some kind of interaction with it. I wish I could tell you more, but that part of the site is so radioactive that nothing we have can approach it."
~ Dr. Noah Aborah, Head of Baeleric Containment Command
Few areas of Tanit II, Kuthor, are as dangerous as the Baeleric Islands, and few go there willingly. Originally a small collection of subtropical islands named for the ones on Earth they resembled, they were unremarkable until the crash of the United Traditionalists Federation vessel UTFSS Reprisal and its tenders. The UTFSS had been in a decaying orbit for decades after the Great Stellar War, and two small vessels from the Tanit II Orbital Defence Force had been assigned to conduct a salvage operation on it after pulling it back into high orbit. During the operation, previously unknown cryostasis pods aboard released UTF personnel, who immediately attempted to seize control of the vessel and the ones attached. In the ensuing conflict, all three vessels made unscheduled hard landings on Tanit II on the Baeleric Islands. New Ibiza was destroyed as its population tried to evacuate and the site became a battle zone as the UTFSS Reprisal deployed combat drones and the T2ODF vessels deployed orbital grade weaponry to try to silence the enemy vessel. Public record shows a successful strike from a photon lance killed the UTFSS Crew and exposed its reactor, at which point the islands became uninhabitable.
The Baeleric Islands are now home to the Baeleric Containment Corps, a planetary level government funded task force with two jobs: to contain the environmental disaster, and to oversee the safe mining of the site for rare earth elements and isotopes created by the leaking reactor. Unfortunately, there are some people willing to risk their lives and the lives of the people back home by trying to visit the island and bring home souvenirs.
Geography
Baeleric Island is a collective name for what was once a large island, smaller island, and some islets. The containment effort has effectively made them into a single lagoon surrounded by a partially completed containment wall. The BCC Command and facilities are on the main "island", overlooking the larger area.
Ecosystem
Radioactive hell is a good description. While mostly contained, the background radiation is about 10x the normal amount in the safest areas, and operations require hostile environment suits and decontamination processes. The flora is warped and stunted, and the fauna display strange but consistent mutations. The consistency of the mutations has been assessed as the result of the antecessor site on the smaller island, near the crash site.
Localized Phenomena
The Sparkles are a phenomena where radioactively charged particles are visible and rise through the air.
Climate
Subtropical with a hint of fallout. The climate is warm, humid, and consistent. Storm Season is particularly dangerous here, because of the radioactive soil and water that get whipped up in the rain and surf.
Fauna & Flora
Radioactive and mutated. All of it, but in stable forms. Scientists believe this is because of the Antecessor site, and something that happened in the waning hours of the conflict that raged there for days.
Natural Resources
Isotopes and rare earth elements are the natural resources of an otherwise blighted location. Formed by the interaction of the leaking reactor and the local environment, they're carefully mined by designated and permitted mining corporations under close observation.
History
The islands were sited as a Tier 3 Settlement Site during the initial surveys of the planet and were colonized during the second wave. New Ibiza was established as a fishing and kelp harvesting village, and grew to the size of a respectable town on the discovery of an antecessor site on the small island. While it was never going to be a New Mombasa, it was on track to being a stable and successful settlement. That all changed after the Great Stellar War and the the crash of the UTFSS Reprisal. Less than 50% of the population managed to escape before the waves, combat drones, and radiation annihilated the settlement.
Tourism
Tourism is extremely limited and mostly conducted as part of academic curriculums. A small number of people illegally enter the site every year, and there's a roughly 45% fatality rate for them, usually from the failure of their hazmat protection. The location remains the subject of popular conspiracy theories, which fuel its illegal entry issues.
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